At noon the heavy floe at the point near us began to quit the land, and at half past one P.M., there being a narrow passage between them, the breadth of which the breeze was constantly increasing, we cast off and stretched to the westward.  The channel which opened to us as we proceeded varied in its general breadth from one to two miles; in some places it was not more than half a mile.  The wind was variable and squally, but we made great progress, along the land to the S.W.b.W., and the Griper, by keeping up tolerably with the Hecla, in some measure redeemed her character with us.  Having arrived off Cape Providence at eleven P.M., the wind became light and baffling, so that we had just got far enough to see that there was a free and open channel beyond the westernmost point visible of Melville Island, when our progress was almost entirely stopped for want of a breeze to enable us to take advantage of it.  The anxiety which such a detention occasions in a sea where, without any apparent cause, the ice frequently closes the shore in the most sudden manner, can perhaps only be conceived by those who have experienced it.  We remarked, in sailing near the ice this evening, while the wind was blowing a fresh breeze off the land, and therefore directly towards the ice, that it remained constantly calm within three or four hundred yards of the latter; this effect I do not remember to have observed before upon the windward side of any collection of ice, though it invariably happens, in a remarkable degree, to leeward of it.  I may here mention, as a striking proof of the accuracy with which astronomical bearings of objects may be taken for marine surveys, that the relative bearing of Capes Providence and Hay, as obtained this evening when the two headlands were opening, differed only one minute from that entered in the surveying-book, and found in the same manner the preceding year.

At one P.M. on the 5th, the weather continuing quite calm, and being desirous of examining the ice in-shore, that we might be ready for the floes closing upon us, I left the ship, accompanied by Captain Sabine and Mr. Edwards, and landed near one of the numerous deep and broad ravines with which the whole of this part of the island is indented.  We were ascending the hill, which was found by trigonometrical measurement to be eight hundred and forty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and on which we found no mineral production but sandstone and clay iron-stone, when a breeze sprung up from the eastward, bringing up the Griper, which had been left several miles astern.  We only stopped, therefore, to obtain observations for the longitude and the variation of the magnetic needle; the former of which was 112 deg. 53’ 32”, and the latter 110 deg. 56’ 11” easterly, and then immediately returned on board and made all sail to the westward.  After running for two hours without obstruction, we were once more mortified in perceiving that the ice, in very extensive and